


Super soldier aging

by PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson



Series: Theories and meta [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: For Science!, Meta, Science, Super Soldier Serum, Super Soldier aging, will they age normally?, will they age super slowly?, you will know at the end of this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:53:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24103957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson/pseuds/PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson
Summary: A scientific and logical look at the possible aging of super soldiers.
Series: Theories and meta [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546192
Kudos: 5





	Super soldier aging

**Author's Note:**

> Warning:this has mentions of death of old age, aging in general, minor body grossness, and lots of rambling about science.
> 
> This is a part of one of my other stories, so the formatting and some of the information is weird, but I posted it here so people wouldn’t have to look through the entire story to find that one chapter!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

When I first began to think of this possibility, I thought of using Thor and Asgardians in general as examples, but that doesn’t make much sense. While Asgardians have longer lifespans than ordinary humans, (eg, they have been to earth in the time of the Vikings and are still alive) and have enhanced healing and durability, (eg, Loki got Hulk smashed during the battle of Manhattan, and walked away from it) as well as many other similar traits to super soldiers, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are connected. We only know of one alien species that has enhanced healing and/or a longer lifespan. Correlation does not equal causation, and it is entirely possible that it is a coincidence, despite how much sense it makes.

To start with, we have to define aging, and know what causes it. (Kind of. We don’t have all the information yet, but this is what’s suspected.) Basically, aging is when the rate of cell death exceeds the rate of cell replication, even by a tiny bit. Cells die in only one of two ways, external stresses, like cuts, burns, etc, or apoptosis. Apoptosis is when a cell destroys itself because it’s DNA is damaged or mutated, and shouldn’t keep on replicating. One of the reasons that a cell could have damaged DNA is because it doesn’t have telomeres anymore. Telomeres are basically junk DNA on the ends of our chromosomes, so that if there is a copying error, then there is a much smaller chance that useful DNA will be destroyed. Telomeres gradually deplete over time, and that is one of the speculated causes of aging. The older you get, the shorter telomeres you have, which causes more cell death, which means that you deteriorate, because you have a higher rate of cell death than cell replication.

A related fact is that super soldiers have enhanced healing, which logically means that their cells replicate faster, to close wounds faster, replace blood volume quickly, and probably leave minimal scarring. The thing is, if super soldier cells replicate twice as fast as normal human cells, and did that constantly, then the effects would probably be very visible, with the extra cells that aren’t dying probably causing massive growths, and possibly growing into the hollow spaces inside him, like his lungs. Steve has been a super soldier for quite a few years now, so it’s likely that if that were to happen, we would know already. It is most likely that Steve’s (and other super soldiers) cells stop replicating if there isn’t a need to replace dead cells, and probably act like most brain and spine nerve cells, which do not replicate after you stop growing, which is why brain and spinal cord injuries are often permanent. Of course, they would begin to replicate again once he got injured, but unless that happened, they would stay in a limbo of sorts.

Aging is partially genetic, and partially based on environmental factors, but I will be basing my theory mostly on the genetic side. Some people have longer telomeres than others, which makes the individual cells last longer, and make it so they can live to one hundred years old and beyond. Since the whole point of the serum was to make people become the best a human could be and beyond, it is very likely that super soldiers have longer telomeres than anybody, and it’s also very likely that their cells make less mistakes in copying DNA, and/or can fix it more effectively than any normal human. Not to mention that they are more durable than any human, so their cells would also not die as often. The thing is, the more a cell is replicated, the more damage there is to the telomeres, and (it’s assumed) the faster someone will age. Since I’m assuming that a super soldier’s cells only divide when needed, and their cells are more durable, and die less, needing less division to fix, that already significantly increases the chance of them aging slower, and means less cells dying of apoptosis. But if you add in the high chance of them having longer telomeres, DNA being less likely to mutate, and the possibility of their cells being able to fix damaged DNA much better than an ordinary human, and it seems that they will have a drastically increased lifespan. There’s also the fact that a few animals (and cancer cells as well) can produce telomerase, which increases the length of telomeres, and increase a lifespan well past it’s normal length. It’s just a guess, but it’s definitely possible in theory that super soldiers could produce telomerase, increasing their lifespan even more.

One interesting fact that I found while researching this is that chemotherapy, or drugs that kill cancer, do that by destroying the cells that replicate faster. Cancer is just cells replicating very fast and out of control, so it works well on cancer, but it also works well on other quickly replicating cells, like hair follicles, bone marrow, and digestive tract cells. This would make it much easier to kill a super soldier with chemotherapy drugs than probably any other drugs. Once one cell was killed by it, other cells would replicate in order to fill the gap, exposing them to the effects, making the cells around them replicate in order the fill the spot, and on and on, until the super soldier was dead. Of course, this would require a lot of chemotherapy drugs, and probably a significant amount of time, but it’s an interesting thought.

One thing that would happen if they did age much slower than the rest of us, and my speculations about how that would happen are true, is that once they did start aging properly, it would be fast. The thing is, when their chromosomes run out of telomeres, cells will start to die of apoptosis. Then those cells will be replaced by other cells that are close to apoptosis, which start to die quickly, then more cells need to be replaced, all with cells that are also close to dying of apoptosis, and on and on. I have no clue how quickly that would be, it might be at a normal human rate, but I do know that it would be much faster than their previous aging rate.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this means that the “scene that must not be named” at the end of Endgame would not work scientifically. Yes, I am happy about this. Yes, this also means that I hate that scene even more now


End file.
